Jealous of a Pillow
by aokiwood
Summary: Peeta is jealous...of a pillow. First fanfic ever, please read and review.
1. Chapter 1

Jealous of a Pillow

On the train, coming back to district 12 Peeta saw how Katniss slept with her body pillow. The capitol had fallen, but it had taken time before they could come back.

Time he had needed, in any case, to recover.

There weren't any body pillows back in district 12, so this had been a new development. When they were in the capitol there were all kinds of decadent luxuries that and pillows were among the least of these.

Sharing a bed he couldn't help but see Katniss sleeping. These were no longer the spacious cars that whispered of a depraved decadence. Now Katniss slept curled up to a body pillow. Peeta thought back to the time in a cave when she had slept curled up to him. Now when the nightmares came she would wake crying and bury her head farther into her pillow.

She shouldn't be seeking comfort from some cushion; she should be coming to him. He'd whisper that everything was all right, and hold her as she cried when she thought of everyone that had been lost. He wanted to be that pillow for her. Now he was just the person on the other side of the bed, across a barrier made of pillow.

Not that he was actually so bold as to suggest that she ditch the pillow and snuggle up to him, but he could dream, as he had to so often with Katniss.

The third night of this Peeta was awake one night after Katniss had drifted off to sleep, as her breathing evened out and deepened. Gently he tugged the pillow out of her grasp and scooted closer to her. As she adjusted in her sleep to him, he laid back, just enjoying the moment. Despite his intentions to put the body pillow back, eventually he too, fell asleep.

Katniss was balancing between dream and wakefulness. She was somewhere warm and she felt heated, and hungry in a vague achy way. She snuggled closer to her pillow to find a more comfortable position, hooking one knee over it to bring it closer. She drifted back down to slumber.

Peeta woke up some time in the early morning to find Katniss curled closer to him than she ever had before. One of her legs was intertwined in one of his, her thigh close to his groin. She moaned slightly in her sleep and wiggled against him, pushing her breasts to his chest. He knew she was still asleep, since she was kind but still so aloof in her waking hours. He smiled to himself. If this was what it was like to be her body pillow he was going to be filling the position for as long as possible.

Katniss woke up in actuality later that morning. She'd slept good, really good and she stretched as she opened her eyes she knew she must have tossed and turned because the bed was messed up, she felt something hard against her. She must have twisted the blanket around her again.

As she opened her eyes she realized that the things twisted around her were NOT the blanket, it was arms. She wasn't curled up around her body pillow, but around a person. She looked into the face, but she already knew who it must be, Peeta. Because, really who was always there for her but him, always him.


	2. Chapter 2

Author's Note: I do not own the Hunger Games.

They had been sharing a bed already, it just made it easier if one of them had a nightmare and needed the other to remind them of reality. Plus the train was small, and it was the easiest way to both sleep on an actual bed. However, for the rest of that trip they slept without the body pillow, and Peeta was happy.

When they got back to district 12 Katniss only stayed a few days at her old house. The memories from before were too much there. The memories of Prim especially had gotten to her, and she could not sleep there without fearing her dreams that would become some of the most vicious nightmares she'd had.

One morning Peeta was going to the bakery at 4:30 in the morning to get the first batch of bread ready when Katniss was waiting on the step for him. She didn't tell him and she didn't have to, he could see the ghosts haunting her eyes. They were the same ones he had, the ones that weren't so savage when they were together. At his gentle suggestion that she spend her nights at his house, she agreed.

There were still plenty of nights when one or both of them woke up screaming, crying, or trying to attack something. But, there were good nights too. There were nights like their first one on the train, when they woke up curled up in each other. Over time it got so the good nights and days outweighed the bad.

As this happened the heat between them only grew. Peeta knew that he was turned on by Katniss, but he had been for a while now. And the way that sometimes she would say his name in her sleep and press against him he knew that she probably felt _something_ physical for him too. But he couldn't make the first move. He had to wait for Katniss to decide, desperately hoping that one day she would.

Several years later Peeta came home in the afternoon to check on his beautiful pregnant wife. She was taking a nap, which was so unlike her, but he was glad she was getting some rest. She was curled up to none other than that damn body pillow. He lay down beside her, watching her face.

"Hey," she said sleepily as she woke up to his face.

"How do you feel?"

"I'm all right, I'm glad you're here now though. I feel weird sleeping without you," then she pushed the pillow aside to rest her head on his chest.

And at that, Peeta Mellark was no longer jealous of a pillow.


End file.
